


Life Gives A Burning Sarcasm Toast To The Future

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire hasn't had too many friends since his first semester at uni. This semester, though, he might have a chance at some friends. That is, until he opens his big mouth to disagree with their leader.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Gives A Burning Sarcasm Toast To The Future

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this when I first joined the fandom. I never posted it because I had no direction for it (I still don't) and I thought it was a bit weird as a standalone. But I'm posting it anyway because in rereading it I think it's pretty good even though I have no idea what to have happen. Also fuck titles. I'm so bad at coming up with titles.

It’s bound to happen. He knows it. This is his third year at university and every semester, unfailingly, he misses a class, either the first day or too many times once the semester has started, and is dropped. So it’s no surprise that he’s missing his first Greek and Roman Epic class of the semester because of a hangover and a faulty alarm. He’s basically a functioning alcoholic, so the hangover wouldn’t really have stopped him from going to class. The problem is his alarm clock that failed to go off. And his head aches, anyway, so whatever. He scrubs a hand over his face and is exceedingly thankful that he’s still living in a single. He’s always been too antisocial to make friends here, too off-putting for the bright-eyed optimism of most uni students. It’s suited him, though. He reads instead of talking and gets drunk on his own instead of hanging out with friends he doesn’t have.

He manages to get ready in time for his advanced painting class and walks across campus with his bag of supplies, nodding a hello to the one person he does vaguely know on this campus that could be considered a friend. Bahorel was in one of his classes freshman year and they’d had some interesting but friendly conversations on their political opinions. But other than that, they don’t really know each other. Just enough for a head-nod. The painting class is uneventful, as they usually are.

He’s had this professor before, heard his first-day spiel already, so he zones out and stares out the window for the rest of the session. It's still the edge of summer, so the sun is bright and casting chiaroscuro shadows along the trees and the lines of the buildings. Grantaire isn't big on summer. He's not big on a lot of things that aren't reading or painting or drinking, though boxing is a good pastime that also doubles as an alternative for getting his face smashed in during a barfight. And much as he enjoys both learning and debating other students, sometimes he can't take school. Sometimes he falls into moods so black he can barely get out of bed to feel human, much less make it to class and force his mind to function around other people. Sometimes people are just too much, and he has to lock himself in his room and watch old mindless episodes of Dragonball Z or Star Trek or Xena Warrior Princess to make his brain stop yelling at him. Today, he's focused enough despite his hangover to listen and think. Painting doesn't take so much brainpower for him, anyway. He's hoping to reserve it all for tomorrow.

He doesn’t drink quite as much that night. He actually wants to make it to his Philosophy of Aesthetics and Consciousness and the Bourgeoisie classes tomorrow. They seem interesting and, you know, he does actually _like_ learning, despite the fact that he’s resigned himself to having one less class than he planned this semester. He wakes up on time in the morning with not so much of a hangover. It makes for a nice change.

His Consciousness and the Bourgeoisie class is very interesting, and he spends the class in rapt attention, and only doodles one little caricature of the professor into his notebook. It’s a good sign.

“Excuse me?” A hand taps him on the shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Can I borrow a pen? I’ve already written so much, mine’s run out of ink.”

“Oh. Sure. I’ve got extras.” He hands the pen over and the young man nods.

“Thanks. I’m Feuilly, by the way.” He sticks out a hand. It’s thin-fingered and the fingers are slightly red at the tips, and covered in ink. Grantaire shakes it.

“Call me R.”

Feuilly nods his acknowledgement and thanks and turns back to his paper. The professor hasn’t stopped talking. Grantaire dives back into the class and doesn’t resurface until the professor dismisses them all. He's really not sure why he's decided to take this class. He already gets annoyed enough at all the people that love to bash those below them. Why did he decide to take a class on their world? No idea. He knows well enough that nothing's going to change. Perhaps at least knowing it in depth will let him stop thinking about it. It's one of those things that comes up far too often to ignore, despite how hard he tries. He's gotten to the point of apathy and a waning desire to do anything to change it, but he still can't help thinking about it or being drawn to annoyance.

“What is beauty? What is art?” Are the first words out of the philosophy professor’s mouth after he calls roll and does the usual introductory speech. Grantaire’s had him before, too, and likes him a lot. He’s a soft-spoken man, with an odd sense of humour that only a few people (including Grantaire) seem to respond to, who can quote various philosophical texts at a whim.

A student raises a hand. “Beauty is something that’s nice to look at or that pleases the eye. Art is something that’s been created.”

“Beauty is something that’s perfect.”

“Art is something we can look at that we like to look at.”

“Art is something that’s created by human hands by an individual. Beauty is like, symmetry or something.”

Grantaire raises his hand. “But what about things that aren’t inherently beautiful by the nature of their appearance, but the thought of them or the way they’ve been manipulated is beautiful? Like Picasso’s cubism isn’t conventionally beautiful or breathtaking, but people still love to look at Guernica and Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Max Ernst’s paintings are bizarre and almost Lovecraftian, but he’s still famous. What about Calder, or Henry Moore? Their sculptures aren’t anything perfect or lovely. But people still look at them. What about John Cage’s 4’33”? It’s literally nothing, unless you find meaning in it. Beauty—and art, really, is just things that make us react in an emotional way, or have meaning for us. Which is why beauty is different for everyone, and why one person loves Dali and another hates his work. If we didn’t have different opinions, we wouldn’t have art. Or philosophy, for that matter, because everyone would know that only certain things are beautiful, and after a while they wouldn’t shine so brightly anymore.”

“Interesting thoughts, Grantaire.” The professor nods and flips the dry-erase marker up and down in his hand. “Anyone have a reply?”

The rest of the class is spent arguing over the idea of beauty and art and perception. It is, overall, a very entertaining two hours. Philosophy of Aesthetics is what he thought it would be, but it perks him up that he’ll happily get to play Devil’s Advocate in this class, especially with his experience as an artist. Looking around the class, he can only see three other students who he knows are going through an Art or Art History major. He listens to the other students’ ideas, interjecting when he feels the need, but mostly it’s nice to just scoff at them inwardly. Some of the opinions really are very dumb.

One girl continues to argue the same point over and over, that beauty is only pleasing to the eye, and the only things that are truly beautiful are things that everyone thinks is pretty, that there’s a lot of shitty art in the world. Grantaire is getting exceedingly frustrated.

“Look,” he bursts out without raising a hand. “Not everyone is going to like the same thing as everyone else. I know Kant said that beauty must be universally accepted or some shit, but he still says that the universality is a supposed thing. We assume that everyone agrees with us that something is beautiful, and we see disagreement as an error. People are going to have different tastes. Not everyone’s favourite colour is blue. Not everyone is going to like peanut butter. Not everyone is going to think Botticelli is wonderful, just like not everyone is going to like Edvard Munch’s work. It’s all relative and subjective and all those other wonderful words. Shitty art may be shitty to some people but it’s still art, it’s still someone’s creation, and it’s beautiful to them. It might be fugly but at least it exists, at least it came out of someone's mind and into existence for whatever reason and with whatever meaning it might have. And that's good enough for the artist, and fuck people who think beauty is a rigid set of rules.”

The girl opens her mouth to rebut him, but the professor clears his throat. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to end class there. We’ll pick up next week, all right?”

The girl huffs out her nose, glaring over at Grantaire, but picks up her bag and slides her notebook inside it anyway. Grantaire shrugs and packs his stuff up without looking around. He enjoyed that, anyway.

“You’re Grantaire?” A musical voice asks as the class floods out the door. Grantaire turns, and is confronted by an explosion of colour and pattern. He frowns at the young man standing in front of him, flowers falling from the braid his long hair has been coaxed into, his clothes nearly bright and clashing enough to make Grantaire want to close his eyes even _without_ a hangover.

“Yeah, why?”

“You were supposed to be in the same Greek and Roman Epic class as me, but you missed it.”

“Yeah, I know. I probably got dropped.”

“You didn’t. I called ‘here’ for you. The professor called ‘Ermenegilde Grantaire’ and no one answered, so he called it again. So I put my head down,” and here, he lowered his voice, “And said ‘here’ like this. So he wouldn’t hear me. And he marked you as present."

“I—thanks. Why’d you do that?”

“Just ‘cause. Anyway, a person who signs up for this sort of class is generally interested in the subject. It’s not as if this is Writing For College or Statistics.”

“True. Can I do something to thank you? I dunno, buy you coffee?”

“Sure, but I have to run to my next class. How about tomorrow. You know the Musain?”

“Don’t go there much, but yeah.”

“Meet me there at two-thirty. You can buy me a coffee to thank me. I’m Jean Prouvaire, by the way. Call me Jehan.”

Grantaire nods at the flurry of speech. The abomination of colour runs off, much to the relief of his eyes. Today has been an interesting day. Grantaire decides it’s time to go home and sleep it away. It hasn’t been quite annoying enough to get plastered, so he has two drinks while he does some philosophy homework, sets his alarm, then passes out on his laptop, his cheek writing a novel of _Js_ as he sleeps.

The Musain is lopsidedly packed, with a large group students scrunched in a group in the far corner, and others scattered around at tables and cushioned chairs, ignoring everything around them as they type on their laptops and drink their far too complicated coffee beverages. Grantaire goes to the counter and gets a coffee, black. He’s never been one for frilly drinks, and he likes the bitter bite.

He turns to see Jehan waving hello from across the room. They meet in the middle. Jehan grins at him, bright smile brightened by the sun painted on his face next to his eye. It matches the bright yellow scarf around his neck and the yellow flowers in his hair.

“Not one for chivalry, huh?” Jehan laughs.

“What?”

“You’re supposed to buy me my drink first.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “You’re not a girl.”

That earns him an adorable put-upon face and a poke in the chest. “Chivalry’s not just for girls these days, mister. Come and buy me a coffee.”

Grantaire trails the flower child to the counter and doesn’t even bother to listen as Jehan lists off the wild thing that is his drink. He hands the cashier the money and follows Jehan back to his seat by the cluster of students in the back. Feuilly is sat in a chair in the back, poring over a textbook, but he looks up and waves when Grantaire and Jehan pass.

“Who’s this?” A voice asks, and Grantaire can hear a smile in it before he even sees the face of a rosy-cheeked bald man, his round face bright with a grin. He’s sprawled in a loveseat with another young man tucked into his side, arm around him. The cute little one has a medical textbook open in his lap and is chewing on a fingernail as he reads.

“This is Ermenegilde,” Jehan introduces.

Grantaire shakes his head. "Oh jesus no, don't call me that. I hate my name. Call me Grantaire or call me R."

Jehan smiles at him and nods, turning to modify his introduction. “I amend, this is Grantaire. Grantaire, this is Bossuet, and that’s his boyfriend Joly.”

Grantaire salutes them sloppily. “Hi. Jehan rescued me from getting dropped from a class.” He gestures to the book in Joly’s lap. “Careful when you read that. It’s like Web MD. Soon you think you’ve got every disease in the book and then you think you’re dying.”

Bossuet snorts. “You’ve hit the nail on the head, friend.”

“Hey!” Joly pokes him in the ribs.

“Here’s some even better advice,” Grantaire continues with a smile. He already likes these two. “Don’t ever read Web MD when you’re wasted. You end up thinking you’re pregnant with a brain tumour, and cholera, _and_ syphilis. Then you freak out and hide under your bed while your friend tries to lure you out with bacon.”

Joly pouts exaggeratedly. Bossuet grins up at Grantaire. “I’ll monitor his laptop from now on.”

“Come on,” Jehan beckons him to a table. “Let’s sit.”

“So, what are you majoring in?” Grantaire asks as he flops into his chair without looking around. He raises an eyebrow at Jehan over his sip of coffee.

“Creative writing, minor in classics. You?”

“Classics and philosophy, minor in art.”

“Oh, a thinker.”

“You couldn’t tell from our Aesthetics class? And I suppose you’re a poet of some sort.”

“You’ve guessed right. Good job.”

He almost misses the sound of a voice rising above the others, except that Jehan’s head automatically twists toward it, so he turns as well.

That is not a man standing on the little coffee table and addressing the little crowd of students sitting in the chairs and tables around him. That is not a man, that is the reincarnation of a Greek god, it is Apollo in human form, a softer Ares. The deity on table is beautiful, his golden hair curling around his face like a halo, ridiculously perfect body easily noticeable through his thin red t-shirt. That’s not what attracts Grantaire, though, even if a hot boy is quite enough to capture his attention. No, what Grantaire notices is the passion that seems to bleed out of every pore of this man, the ambition and fervour that shines out of him like sunlight. His muscles move with a sort of fevered grace, his expression fierce. Grantaire has no idea what the man’s talking about but he _wants_ to listen to him, because he obviously believes in whatever it is he’s pontificating on.

“Who’s that?”

Jehan smirks at him. “Enjolras. He’s a politics major. This little group here is a sort of unofficial official activism club on campus.”

“Unofficial official?” Grantaire questions, without taking his eyes off the golden god.

“Yeah. It’s not officially a club on campus like the GSA is or the debate club or the sustained living club. But he still manages to get funding and permits to do protests or events, things like that.”

“Persuasive.”

“Exactly.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not big on activism.”

“Maybe you’ll change your mind. Listen to him. I may be a poet, but he’s got a way with words that blows me away.”

Grantaire tunes in to the man in the middle of a sentence. “—did a good job organizing the worker’s wages protests and events last semester.” The man he gestures to dips his head in a nod. Enjolras is full of fire, his voice ringing out across the little sea of students piled in chairs, tables, on the floor. His eyes flash with passion and he gestures wildly. There’s something about him that’s full of ambition, golden, magnificent.

Enjolras turns to address the group as a whole again. “But this year, because there’s a few more of us, I think our main cause should be LGBT awareness, queer rights and the like. Queer people deserve rights, too. Queer people deserve acceptance. Our goal this semester will be to raise awareness about discrimination and to encourage acceptance for all. We’ll set up events: speakers, movie screenings, protests, Day of Silence and Transgender Day of Remembrance, possibly even a pride parade.”

“Seriously?” Grantaire mutters under his breath. Jehan shoots him a look, but he ignores it. The sheer blind optimism of this blond god makes him want to laugh, or maybe gag.

“The people who hate us need to understand and realize that we are people too, and that we are just the same as they are. They need to be convinced, they need to realize that equality and acceptance is important. They need to realize the fact that everyone is equal and that we deserve all the same rights that they have.”

Grantaire can feel the dissent bubbling up inside of him. Enjolras is gorgeous, and his passion is already addicting, catching, but it’s in Grantaire’s nature to be the devil’s advocate. It’s in his nature to doubt, to be a cynic, to criticize the world. Enjolras is ablaze, ambition glowing in his skin, zeal driving his movements, expression fierce. The students are hanging on to every word, but he cannot help the skepticism that grips him.

“That’s never going to work.” Grantaire scoffs loudly. Enjolras’ gaze swings to him, intense, focussed. Grantaire feels warm, and suddenly he wants Enjolras’ attention on him always. “Look, the people who hate you are always going to hate you. You can’t change that. Day of Silence is nice as a blanket statement, it’s nice for respecting people who don’t want to come out. But what is it achieving? Everyone they want to stop hearing shuts the fuck up for a whole day, isn’t that nice? Transgender Remembrance Day, the fuck is that? Half the queer community doesn’t even know what the word _means_ , do you really expect them to even participate?”

Enjolras’ gaze is sharp on him. It feels like a hole is burning into his forehead and he can feel himself sinking, can feel the man hating him right there, but he can’t make himself stop. “Protests and the Fuck Hate campaign and whatever else you decide to support aren’t going to do shit. Yelling and screaming in their faces to get them to accept you? Yeah, that always went over so well in the past. And the parades just validate what they think of you. Campy, silly queers in crazy outfits or walking around naked smoking weed and getting wasted and partying like sinners. It’s bullshit. It does nothing for your cause.”

“And what would you have us do?” Enjolras demands, eyes flashing. There is anger and possibly disdain in every move of muscle and Grantaire doesn’t care. Tries not to care.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Do something about the kids who are still being kicked out of their homes or disowned when they come out. Do something about gay men and women who still aren't allowed to give blood despite their HIV status. Do something about trans people who can be fired simply for being themselves. Do something about partners being able to visit the people they love in hospital. Do shit that’s actually helpful, that will have a goal you might _actually_ be able to reach. Screaming into the ears of the deaf will get you nothing.”

“And what do you know about it?”

“Nothing, really. I couldn’t care less about this sort of thing. I don't do activism. I just live my own little gay life. Why meddle with things that have nothing to do with me? I’m just here for coffee. But you’re an idiot if you think yelling and screaming is going to get some arrogant bigoted prick to listen to you or to think better of you. Maybe it works for other issues, but it sure as hell won’t work here. Whatever, though. It’s your problem.”

“You’re hopeless,” Enjolras snaps. “How else are we going to get people to listen to us? We need to fight for people who deserve regular rights and equality.”

“He’s right, you know,” says a man sitting near the centre of the group.

“Courfeyrac!”

“He is, though. Shouldn’t we have a definite goal? Or something that’s truly important and achievable? ‘Acceptance’ is so broad, and has so many different levels. It’s hard to fight for that. It’s easier to campaign for shelters for homeless teens.”

Enjolras sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Meeting’s over. I need to think.”

The golden boy steps off the low coffee table and pushes through the throng of students easing out of chairs and clambering off the floor. He shoots a dark look at Grantaire as he passes by and Grantaire hears him mutter something that sounds like “waste of space.” Enjolras’ eyes are no longer on him, and something has dulled in him from the revulsion in that voice. He feels something in his chest sink, breaking up into sharp pieces, leaving him cold and cut up. But Jehan is standing, so Grantaire follows to the front of the café.

“Hey, I’m Courfeyrac,” says a voice. Grantaire turns. The voice is attached to a young man in a stylish outfit, perfectly matched, peacoat and all. It’s quite a relief after the colourful monstrosity of Jehan. He has an easy, friendly smile and dark eyes.

“Yes, I heard.” Grantaire shakes the proffered hand. “I’m Grantaire."

“Nice to meet you. Did Jehan drag you along?”

Grantaire nods and grins, gesturing to Jehan. “He rescued me from being dropped from a class, so I bought him coffee as thanks. What?”

Jehan has been staring at him the entire time, eyes practically popping out of his head. “You argued with Enjolras,” he says in a rush.

“Yeah? So?”

“Nobody argues with Enjolras. Polite dissent, maybe. Barely.”

“Only Combeferre gets away with that,” Courfeyrac interjects.

“Exactly. You argued with Enjolras and _lived_.”

That’s debatable, but Grantaire shrugs. "I'm hard to kill." He pats Jehan on the shoulder. "I'll see you in class, yeah?"

He leaves before they can say anything else, before his brain can start shouting at him for being such a stupid asshole, for arguing with a stranger as lovely as that, for making Enjolras hate him, for possibly insulting the leader and losing potential friends, for things he knows he didn't even really do. He shuffles back to his dorm room with his head down, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, lip trapped between his teeth. A scratchy black static is already taking over his thoughts, sneering down at him and insulting all the things he's ever thought or done. His thoughts turn again to the blonde on the table, to their argument, to his flashing eyes and passionate face. He knows he'll see Enjolras again, and _then_ what?


End file.
